What color am I really?

[jcatblum]

Got a cage of guineas at auction a couple of weeks ago. It said chocolate & bronze. I brought home 2 chocolate & thought it was 12 bronze. Once I got the birds outside there are 2 that are a much lighter color than the bronze. More brown looking the black-- the bronze are almost the same color as my purples. hard to get a good pic. The 2nd pic is the brown color next to a bronze. Any thoughts? It has the same marks as the bronze & chocolate. Too dark for chocolate at this age & too light for bronze. the other chocolates are still the light tan color. These guineas are almost the exact size as mine that I hatched 4th July. What age do the chocolates get darker?

 

[PeepsCA]

Bronze Guineas will not usually show their true "bronziness" until they are 6 months old or so. Until then they look like regular Royal Purples.
I see a Chocolate and Royal Purples in the 1st pic...

(and a Lavender?), but the Royal Purple in the center of the 2nd pic looks a little "bronzy" on the wing.

Can you post some better pics?

 

[jcatblum]

The lighter bird is actually a buff dundotte from my 4th July hatch.

I will he more than happy to post better pics. Any thougts on how to train guineas to be photogenic? I will see if I can get a few different colors to stand still long enough for you to compare.

This picture shows bronze on the left, chocolate inthe middle & the 2 birds in question on the right. See how brown they are?

 

[PeepsCA]

Any thougts on how to train guineas to be photogenic?

LMAO! Ummmm... no, I usually just take 100 pics of each bird and pick out the best 2 that aren't blurry, lol.

The 2 birds on the right look very much like my Chocolates... which have ALL been Hens and very very chocolaty cocoa brown, especially while young, so maybe the lighter one is a Chocolate male and those 2 in question are Chocolate Hens? Have you heard any of them buckwheating? Maybe the light one is a Blonde? (Which I have not bred any of YET). This has defintely got me stumped tho, I need to see them in person, lol. Whatever they are, I hope they reproduce for you!!!!!!! And when they do, send me some eggs

Take more pics as they mature, I'm interested in seeing how they feather out as full grown adults

I would say they are definitely a major score, big time on your part if you are after as much diversity in your flock as I am. Maybe you have a NEW color!!!

And oops... the lightest bird in the first pic looked sorta blue-ish to me, bad call on my part, sorry! - (tsk tsk Peeps, yer slippin')

For what it's worth I have pics of last yr's and this yr's Chocolates on My BYC Page... and here's a pic of this Chocolate Hen of mine (last yr's) at about 7-8 months old I think.

 

[jcatblum]

Peeps they do look alot like your chocolate hen from your page, but not as dark as the one above. I have been putting bands on the ones that buckwheat I will check tomorrow. I know that one is a hen. The head scratching part for me is I know I have banded one of the lighter color chocolates as a hen too!!! Oh guineas are always trouble aren't they!

I will try to get pictures with my camera tomorrow, the other pics were w my phone. I have several buff dundotte & a white in that pen. When the light hits them the whole pic is a glare it seems. Maybe my camera will do better than my iPhone.

 

[MuranoFarms]

Quote:
The saturation in this pic is really high...you might be able to change that in your camera (depending on the model) but that's changing the way they look in the pic.

 

[jcatblum]

I stood in the cold and watched the birds this AM as the sun was coming up. Both of the darker brown birds are hens. However I do have at least 2 lighter ones which are also hens.

Took a few pics with a real camera today, instead of my iphone. Of course after I snapped a few pics the memory card was full!

1st 2 pics are the flock so you can see the color compared to others

next pic shows that I do have a very light chocolate the same size as the brown guinea in question, that I banded as a hen. Not a great pic, but I think you can see the color difference & the band on her leg

Last pic shows a guinea that is light chocolate about 8 weeks old, you can't see but I also have her marked as a hen. She is from hatchery stock. The browns I ordered from the same hatchery looked like pearls until 2 wks of age. So it could be a color issue within their stock????

For now I will call them Chocolate, later I might call them something else.

 

[PeepsCA]

Hmm now that I see them all together in these newest pics, the 2 in question do look extra bronze-ish colored, not so much brown-ish... but they sure do look close to the color of my Chocolates. That's a pretty drastic color shade difference between Hens tho. The rest of the dark birds in that age group look like normal Royal Purples usually do at that age (and all the Bronzes that I've seen/owned/hatched too).

Your light Chocolate Hen is pretty light, but maybe mine are just exceptionally dark, altho I have Chocolate Hens from 2 unrelated sources and they look very similar in color shade, and all looked the same as keets... but just to confirm it for myself I contacted a reputable breeder a while back and he confirmed that they were Chocolates. There's always some degree of color variation between different gene pools and from what various breeders call certain colors tho... and some breeders would call your light Chocolate Hen a Blonde or even a Buff instead

Anyway, gorgeous birds... I'm still scratching my head tho, lol. Thanks for posting more pics, sorry you froze your hiney off this morning and that I don't have some definitive answers for you

 

[jcatblum]

I do actually have several purples in this flock too, I can still tell them apart from the bronze, but only because they still have some stripes on their heads. This pen is the keets from this yr that I am keeping. I don't have any pearl & lavenders in the pen. I wanted to try to minimize them taking over my gene pool. I am only keeping a few lavender & pearls & I going to do my best to integrate them into my adult flock.

We have 20 acres so I put the pens on opposite sides. So far they don't seem to hear each other, but I know that could change real fast.

Thanks for trying peeps. Guess we will see what hatches out in the spring. That should help answer questions.

Since there isn't a standard for chocolates then it is anybody's guess!